5 Windows Media Player Tips & Tricks you may not be aware of

If you are a Windows user, then you must be aware of Windows Media Player, which is the default media player for the Windows operating system. It does not require any introduction and is familiar to everyone. Most of us make use of it for playing audio and video files. We also know that, it supports online streaming of videos and music and allows us to rate the music, so that we can sort based on the rating and can access those files easily. Almost everyone is aware of basic Windows Media Player tips, but, there are more hidden and unknown tips and tweaks, which you may want to know.

Windows Media Player Tips and Tricks

There are some hidden and lesser known tips of Windows Media Player which are only accessible when we dig in to the player. I will showcase you best 5 among them. By knowing these tweaks and tips, you can say that you are a power user of Windows Media Player.

Search audio and video files using operators

There might be many audio and video files in your Windows PC and are seen in Windows Media Player. Suppose, there are many audio files with similar names and you want to play a particular file among them. This would be really challenging, if there are many such files. Then, using the Search with operators feature will be very helpful. You can use AND or OR operator to find the audio or video file. For example, you can find the audio file by song name and the singer name.

Now, even though there might be many songs with the same name, by using the AND operator with the singer name, it displays the matching file. Search results are displayed by searching through the information present in your audio and video file of your system. You can even perform the search with ratings and other parameters.

Search through years

Windows Media Player allows you to search through years. If you are fond of old songs or latest songs and if your Windows Media Player is full of songs with 1980’s to latest date, then that would be very difficult to find old or new songs. Then, you can specify the search pattern like ‘starting year..ending year’. Then, it checks for the albums in your PC which has the year between the specified range including the start and end year.

For example, if I want to search for albums from 2012 to 2014, then I would enter ‘2012..2014’ and all albums matching the specified year will be displayed.

Stop sending Player Usage Data to Microsoft

Microsoft by default enables the option in Windows Media Player, which sends your player usage data to it. It is because to improve the user experience of the player. If you do not feel like sending the player usage data to Microsoft, then you can stop that. To do that, go to Tools > Options and tap on “Privacy” tab. Uncheck one and only one option under the section “Windows Media Player Customer Experience Improvement Program”.

From, now on your player usage data is not sent to Microsoft. This is one of my best Widows Media Player tips.

Stop others playing high rated DVDs in your Windows Media Player

If you want your Windows Media Player to play certain good rated DVDs and not to allow other high rated DVDs, even that can be done with just few clicks. You can put a restriction to your Windows Media Player for not playing DVDs than the specified rating. For this, go to Tools > Options and tap on DVD tab. Click on Change button which opens “Change Rating Restrictions” window. From the dropdown, select the DVD minimum rating which you want to restrict.

From then, DVD which is higher than the specified rating will not be played in Windows Media Player. For example, if I want to restrict my Windows Media Player not to play DVDs which are higher that ‘R’ rating, then I would choose the value ‘R’ from the dropdown.

Set the smooth flow of Online Streaming

Windows Media Player allows you to Stream Online. Due to slow internet speed and some other reasons, there may be some problems with the streaming. To have smooth flow of music or movie, Windows Media Players stores some content in the buffer, before the start of playback. That is called as Buffer. This is helpful to compensate the slow internet speed and playback. You can choose the value of buffer through Tools > Options and tap on Performance tab.

Under Network buffering, specify the value in between 0 to 60. Based on the specified value content will be stored before the start of playback. Do not assign a high value to buffer as it may slow your downloads.

Sridhar is a Software Engineer who loves to stay updated with developments in the world of technology. He is fond of writing everything related to Internet, Computers and Mobile and Desktop Operating Systems.